Stuff.co.nz to hire new front line team

Fairfax Media NZ news site Stuff.co.nz is about to expand as a new team of national correspondents prepare to join the ranks to create focused, agenda-setting journalism.

The front line journalists will be provided the time and support needed to break national stories.

Fairfax Media group digital editor Mark Stevens said that team would have Stuff’s comprehensive multimedia suite at their disposal.

“The most valuable commodity in a newsroom is time. Creating this team is the commitment that this group of journalists be given the time, focus and the support to perform what we hope and aim to be agenda-setting journalism.”

Mr Stevens said that he hoped to hire four to five “A-class journalists”, but the number could change depending on the number of quality candidates. The team will not be based in one location, instead working collaboratively to cover nationwide issues.

Stuff.co.nz currently is the digital epicentre of editorial operations at Fairfax NZ. Content created by the national correspondents will be syndicated through the site before appearing in the print, particularly the metro, mastheads.

The team will work multiplatform, encouraged to use the medium that can best tell the story at scale.

Stuff positions video at the centre of its digital strategy. The company also launched its first podcast last week, murder mystery “Black Hands”, which took journalist Martin van Beynen three years to research and has proved a worldwide hit.

Stuff also has partnership deals with state broadcasters TVNZ, Radio New Zealand and Maori Television and has a wide range of interactives.

The new team will work similarly to Stuff Circuit, an award winning four-person unit of investigative journalists.